EddieOlivas.com

Last night I went to my first Go meeting. If you’re not familiar Go is a board game. The oldest and probably the most complex board game known to man. The game takes just a few moments to learn and a lifetime to master. It’s far more complex than Chess and in my opinion a hell of a lot more fun. They can make computers that beat humans at Chess. Not so with Go. Even the biggest baddest Computer programs can’t beat strong human players at Go. Though computers sure beat the hell out of me. The object of Go is to surround more empty space on the board than your opponent with stones and if you can surround your opponents stones you capture them. I’ve been playing for about a year although I took quite a few months off for a while. I just reached the rank of 12kyu on KGS.

I recently found the new website for the Eugene Go Club, EugeneGo.org. They get together at 7am on Tuesdays which is insane. So luckily people in the group started emailing about possibly having an evening meeting. The conversation died down for a while so I emailed the group, prodding them to make a decision and finally have an evening meeting. So one of they guys finally did it and we all got together last night at Cafe Espresso Roma by the U of O campus. A whopping 14 people showed up! From what I’m told that’s the most people to show up at a meeting in a long time.

I played two games against a guy named Marvin. We were both ranked 13kyu online so we played even, no handicaps and I managed to win both games. I guess it makes sense that I moved up to 12kyu the next day. I also brought Jessica, I’ve been teaching her Go for the last month. She was dead set against playing a game she just wanted to watch. But there was a guy there who’s closely matched to her and she managed to win both games against him. I was very proud of her. All in all it was a really fun night. I’m looking forward to continuing to improve at the game and having a meeting in town will be awesome for learning. I love Go.